On Top of the World

This is a long post but it was a long time in the making. Our geology and geography studies continued as we moved on to a unit about mountains. We began this unit in the middle of November but with the holidays and all that goes with them there were several interruptions and so it took longer than normal to complete (and even longer afterward for me to put this post together bit by bit). I'm listing resources used as well as showing and telling most of what we did with these resources.


Informational Books
The Big Atlas of the Earth and Sea by Susanna van Rose and Anita Ganeri*
Scholastic's Everything You Need to Know About Geography Homework by Anne Zeman and Kate Kelly*

Mountains (Mapping Earthforms) by Catherine Chambers

Everest:  Reaching the World's Highest Peak (DK Discoveries)
Denali "The Highest Peak in North America (Wonders of the World)
Grand Teton National Park by David Peterson
John Muir, America's Naturalist by Thomas Locker
John Muir, My Life with Nature by Joseph Cornell

Each book was read cover to cover and then the information used for notebooking.  Books marked with * are being used throughout the whole of our geology studies.

Videos
Amazing Earth, a Discovery Channel video
Planet Earth, "Mountain" episode
Kilimanjaro:  To the Roof of Africa from the Houston Museum of Natural Science (SlingShot)

Game

"Himalaya" - a mountaineering card game involving adding meter cards to reach base camps and having equipment cards to avoid the danger cards; first to the summit wins

Music
Hymn "High on the Mountain Top"
Hymn "O Ye Mountains High"
Hymn "Our Mountain Home So Dear"
Hymn "For the Strength of the Hills" (both to sing and study and to learn on piano)
Piano Solo "Smoky Mountain Waterfall" by Martha Mier in Celebrate America! Book I
Piano Solo "Rocky Mountains" by Ted Cooper in Around the World on 88 Keys Book 1

A mountain unit study was the perfect time to introduce my kids to the poetic lyrics of John Denver, starting with "Rocky Mountain High."

Art
Possibly the coolest art project ever:  textured mountain paintings from thatartistwoman

These two are my creations. Yes, I did two, and if I'd had time I would have done more. The texture technique was addicting.

Notebooking

There were vocabulary pages in addition to the following.

The Seven Summits:  Highest mountain on each continent.

Eight Thousanders, Altitude, Snow Lines

Tree Lines, Altitude Sickness, Temples as the Mountains of the Lord

Mountain Biomes

Topographical Maps, Major Mountain Ranges in the U.S.

This fold-out "book" was about the mountain ranges in the U.S.
with maps, photos, and information such as the highest peaks in
these ranges and other interesting facts about names and places.

You can see in some of the notebooking pages that we learned about topographical maps and contour maps, and then we made relief maps of the mountains in our state. We also did a notebook page on specific mountains in our state. 

We also learned about the science and folklore of our immediate local mountains and completed a tour and activity book produced by America's Scenic Byways.

Language Arts

The majority of our Language Arts for this unit was focused on John Muir, a fascinating individual. I read a beautiful picture book to everyone:

Then everyone read on their own:

Following the reading there were writing assignments, including writing a biographical report on Muir. John Muir wrote so much himself and it is a real pleasure to read some of his very poetic observations; one assignment was to create a mountain collage with photographs and John Muir quotes. 

Another creative writing assignment took place at Christmastime after we read "Fairy Tale Christmas."  The elements of the story had to include familiar characters from books they loved and a mountain figuring prominently in the scene/plot.

Field Trips

We went into the mountains to hike and make observations of rock strata and the obvious folding and upheaval. One day we hiked from the mouth of one canyon, along the bench, to the mouth of another canyon. ("Benches" usually mark a former shoreline and wave-cut terraces in the flanks of the Wasatch Mountains.) On other hikes we identified things with vocabulary words such as foothills and scree. One particular trip to the mountains had another significant purpose, learning of the relation between prophets and mountains and revelation.

History

There is history in all the other components from the history of mountaineering to John Muir, etc.

Quotes
"The mountains are calling and I must go." -John Muir

"Be Master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out--it's the grain of sand in your shoe." -Robert Service

"Go to nature's school--the one true university." -John Muir

"People are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home, that wilderness is a necessity."

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread..."

"Climb the mountains and get good tidings. Nature's peace will flow unto you as sunshine flows into the trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while care will drop off like autumn leaves." -John Muir

"The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men, whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains."